Hartford , Connecticut -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- I knew every last American had been touched by the World Cup when my father-in-law told me how much he enjoyed `` the first few innings '' of the Brazil-Ivory Coast match .

Needless to say , he 's just discovering soccer . He still thinks a red card is what communists keep in their wallets . And yet , like so many of his countrymen , he 's suddenly been laid low by World Cup fever , whose symptoms include a dull headache and a stiff neck , the result -- in my case -- of practicing headers in the driveway . -LRB- `` Practicing them for what ? '' my wife inquired . But you never know when that call-up will come for the U-50 national team . -RRB-

At long last , soccer ignorami in this country are becoming part of the international community . For most of this past week , I -LRB- an American citizen -RRB- felt schadenfreude -LRB- a German word for `` joy in the misery of others '' -RRB- at the spectacular implosion of Les Bleus -LRB- the French national team , which mutinied against its own coach while crapping out of the tournament -RRB- . That 's three countries in a single emotion , the kind of geopolitical awakening most of us only get in America when walking into an International House of Pancakes .

And so I ca n't stop singing that song from Nike 's ubiquitous World Cup commercial , in which Italian lounge singer Bobby Solo serenades Italy captain Fabio Cannavaro with a chorus -- `` Che Cannavaro , Che Capitano '' -- that is as insidiously unshakeable as the World Cup itself .

I interviewed Cannavaro in Milan a dozen years ago and have followed and occasionally covered international soccer for two decades . In America , I sometimes act like one of those bores who saw the Beatles in Hamburg before they made it big : that guy who feels smugly superior to the mass of fans who later fill the bandwagon .

This kind of smugness has its advantages . A fellow school parent asked me yesterday : `` What 's the name of that guy who coaches Argentina ? '' When I said , `` Diego Maradona , '' she replied : `` How do you know all this stuff ? ''

Maradona is only the greatest soccer player of all time and one of Earth 's most famous inhabitants , but I kept those secrets to myself , letting her think I 'm a soccer sophisticate and repository of the game 's most obscure trivia .

I 'm just happy that more people care , that the next time my father-in-law hears the name Donovan , he 'll think of the American whose 91st-minute goal sent the U.S. to the knockout stages of the 2010 World Cup , not the Englishman whose song `` Mellow Yellow '' went to No. 2 in the charts in 1966 . Someday , when my father-in-law thinks of 1966 as the year that England last won the World Cup , the tournament will have finally realized its manifest destiny . It will truly have conquered the world .

It 's almost there now . More and more Americans are succumbing . You may have noticed your fellow cubicle jockeys sounding like one of those English soccer announcers currently on loan to ESPN : decrying `` cynical '' tackles , praising `` beautifully weighted '' passes and pronouncing themselves , at the water cooler , too `` knackered '' to work .

iReport : Do you have World Cup mania ?

Last Sunday , I saw a brand-new Manchester United license plate frame on a car in our church parking lot . The next day , an 8-year-old saw my toddler in an English soccer jersey at the park and yelled , correctly : `` He 's got an Arsenal shirt on ! '' These are hopeful signs . In much of America , in the month it is named for , the June bug abruptly appears , reaches maturity in July and then quickly dies off . Typically , the World Cup does the same .

But this time , I think soccer , as grass-dwelling pests go , will be harder to eradicate . I know the game will be eating my lawn for years to come .

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Steve Rushin .

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Steve Rushin is thrilled that more people are caring about soccer

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He says more and more Americans are succumbing to Cup fever

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The game will be difficult to eradicate , Rushin writes